Google Giggles

A few words about ... vacuums!

Last week I got out of bed and into my car to shop for a vacuum cleaner in a semi-robotic, automatic, beam-me-up kind of way. Without first forming a central system for comparison, or reading any review, rating, records or consumer report to gauge the best machines, whether commercial, industrial, bagless, cordless, hepa, wet-dry, or for simplicity of repair, I chose a Bissell vacuum cleaner off the back of a truck from among a pool of Dirt Devil, Dyson, Electrolux, Eureka, Fantom, Hoover, Kenmore, Kirby, Miele, Oreck, Panasonic, Rainbow, Roomba, Royal, Shark, Sharp, and Tristar titles and packaging.

Stranger things have happened. I didn't know what to make of the vacuum guy's cover. He was parked, motor running, on a leaf-strewn lawn by an above ground swimming pool and had some robot-like female pumping pond stuff through hose and tube into a variety of canister, chamber, and storage bags. The whole contraption, topped by a rotary vane, he claimed was some kind of Gast pump coating machine, a sealer and sweeper for the pool-side tile. But of his assistant coater who wore only a bra, he said nothing.

But I was happy to get the vacuum cleaner nevertheless. And I did it all without touching a browser. A marvelous feat.

Continue reading A few words about ... vacuums!

rri (Aug '04)

A few words about...

The little words cavorting noticed one day that they were being herded into an ever-narrower column in the middle of the page. To the left and the right appeared flickering changing shapes. One day, a group of words noticed that the shapes seemed to shadow them hunter-chameleons changing, echoing, reaching. "George Christian Bush!" a group of words would shout, and the Republican National Committee would reach out a bony link. "Watch what you say!" another group would whisper, and Powells Books would suggest 1984. Soon they began to play with the shapes, to see what they could make them do. "Deep-sea divers report record loss on silly-putty sales under hurricane conditions." "Writhing newts endanger terms of DVD sales agreement with Finland." "House of Rising Sun declared winner of new housing start extravaganza with retrograde motion." The shadows silently shadowed illuminating far corners of mercantile greed outposts of wishful thinking beckoning...

busybeaver (Jul '04)